


icarus

by mako_lies (wingeddserpent)



Series: The Ruin [1]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Pre-Canon, mentioned Ardyn/Gilamesh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-11
Updated: 2018-07-11
Packaged: 2019-06-08 19:00:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15249927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wingeddserpent/pseuds/mako_lies
Summary: A parting.Ardyn didn't expect goodbye to be like this.





	icarus

**Author's Note:**

> Based on the song "Icarus" by Bastille. 
> 
> This contains attempted fratricide. Part of Ruin verse, but stands alone.

The sun scorches skin, red blooming where he had become ashen and unsightly. To be perfectly honest, he hardly notices pain anymore, given that it’s his constant companion. The blisters on his palms burst and still, Ardyn digs. 

Were he foolish enough—brave enough—to glance down, he suspects that his blood runs black with the corruption. That same Scourge he had healed of the girl yesterday.

No. It is not true healing, what he does. Did. But it’s an exchange. One he learned of too late, fool that he is. Trusting, so ever trusting. He has learned, finally.

Or perhaps not. Ardyn pauses to survey the grave. Shallow, but he has grown so thin since the Crystal rejected him. It will suffice. Exhaustion swallows him up, the exertions of today and yesterday caught up with all those that came before. He tosses aside the shovel, a surge of anger welling in him as it does so often now. That he must die for the mistake of the Gods—no. He presses his torn palms together and feels for that covenant he forged at such cost with such belief. “Pray, let him come.”

+

And then comes the pad of chocobo feet on the summer grass, and a familiar wark sounds. It is almost as though his prayers have been answered. “Hail, Gilgamesh. He could not face me himself, it seems. Tell me, dear heart,” the old name, he says with all the venom beating through his veins. “Do you ever tire of doing his dirty work?”

“I never tire of my duty, that his hands may remain clean, Your Highness.” Unmovable, Gilgamesh looks at the grave rather than Ardyn. Rather reminiscent of the last time they bedded, but Ardyn isn’t _bitter_.

It’s simply the poison whispering. (Except perhaps it isn’t. Gilgamesh’s disgust had been real, if nothing else, and despite fealty, Ardyn had been so easily abandoned. Duty had its limits, it seemed. If only the others had felt the same, but—no, he cannot spare more hurt for the friends who had followed him so foolishly.)

“Oh? Am I Highness still? How fascinating. But let’s get on with the excitement, shall we? Since he could not bear to shed my blood himself.”

“I’m here, little brother.” Somnus rides up, kingly, his mantle blowing regal in the breeze.

Ardyn, despite himself, sags with relief. Suffering is better shared, he’s learned and learned and learned and shared so much of the suffering of the world, and that growing gnawing darkness consuming him would eat of his brother’s grief. The last thing he will partake of on this world. Fitting, he supposes.

“I am sorry,” Ardyn surprises even himself. “It was never meant to be you.”

Ardyn was meant to be King, will all the responsibility and pain that entailed. The best laid plans of Gods and Men.

Somnus dismounts. His expression even, like their mother’s. A king’s visage, and Ardyn tells himself he doesn’t hate his brother for that. “My brother, you have given of yourself too freely. By my hand, I hope you shall rest easy.”

His Glaive materializes then in that flashy blue light. And oh, does Ardyn ache for that clean blue magick, untainted by the Scourge.

Somnus has ever been the fighter, trained to protect Ardyn since they were young.

(That dark whisper: his brother _took_ everything without so much as a glance back, it would be so _easy_ to strike him down, if Ardyn would but lift a blade—)

Instead, Ardyn unwraps his scarf and bares his throat. “Hurry now, before I wither of age.”

Somnus’s oceanic eyes are wet, but he looks him in the eye even as the blade slides home.

Intimate, Ardyn thinks at the last.

+

Warmth seeps into the places chill had dwelled. Where is he? Is this the Beyond? No. He is in far too much pain, like someone has tenderized his rotted flesh with a hammer. There are arms wrapped around him. Wetness on his face. Is it rain? “Brother?” he wheezes, throat burning as though seared—

Where his brother had killed him. It slams back to him then. Had his brother been so overcome by sentiment, to spare him with a curative? Surely not? (But there, there it is, _hope_ , in that small patch the darkness hasn’t crept into like so many barbed vines, _hope_ that his fool of a brother couldn’t kill him after all).

Ardyn jerks from his brother’s loose grip—to be met with Gilgamesh’s blade. A warning at his throat. “You were meant to kill me,” and Ardyn’s voice is low, but he turns to look at his brother, ignoring the steel against his skin.

His grave is just there. He would fill it.

“I did,” his brother says, face lined still with tears that—should make Ardyn feel something, but it doesn’t—it really doesn’t—if his brother had killed him, then why—”I should have listened to the Oracle. No matter. It pains me, Ardyn, but the corruption has spread farther than death can reach.”

“What?” The Oracle? That woman that Shiva had elevated from the streets, and taught of the covenant? “But, brother, you swore to me that—”

“A kindness. I’d hoped that in your suggesting this, there was something of my brother left in you. I was wrong it seems. The Crystal and the Gods… were of course correct.” Somnus looks at that empty grave and sighs heavily even as Ardyn reels. “Gilgamesh.”

How has he survived? What did the Oracle tell his brother? And what does his brother know, that he won’t deign tell Ardyn? Gilgamesh cuts his wild spiral of thoughts short with a muzzle. It fits neatly over his mouth, and somewhere is a jab about other ways to silence him. But he is numb, even as Gilgamesh fits him gently into chains.

To be forsaken by the Gods he gave everything for is one thing, but to lose his brother and Shield to them… is another. Gilgamesh draws him up chained before the King. Betrayal beats in his veins as he looks up at his pitiless brother. A nod, and then the world goes dark once more.

+

He wakes on the docks, bleary and burning in the cursed sunlight. Soldiers he doesn’t recognize but wear Somnus’s seal load him upon a fine ship. A ship that looks faster than any Ardyn’s ever had the misfortune of riding. He is in for an unpleasant voyage, given the sea sickness he’d developed following the Rite of the Tide Mother. On the dock, the King watches on, Gilgamesh at his side. “May we meet again in the Beyond,” says the man who was his brother. Then, to the captain, “Make haste to Angelgard.”


End file.
